Don't have an ID?

Print subscribers

Non-subscribers

Socialism in the Upper Cumberland

Posted
Sunday, September 2, 2018 12:00 am

BY W. Calvin Dickinson

It may seem unusual that in the conservative state of Tennessee, numerous persons interested in socialism have launched several socialist experiments. In fact, one could contend that the Upper Cumberland region has been the center of socialist thought and activity in Tennessee.

The first experiment inspired by socialist philosophy was the English settlement of Rugby in Morgan County. Founded in 1880, Rugby was the dream of English judge Thomas Hughes, author of the popular novel Tom Brown’s School Days. Rugby colony attracted about two hundred persons in 1880. An agricultural collage of approximately sixty-five buildings, Rugby included two hotels, two general stores, a drugstore, a schoolhouse, a Gothic Revival church ,and a stylish library. Hughes formulated ideas for Rugby under the influence of his Christian socialist teachers in England. The nobility of labor and benefits for the laboring class were emphasized in socialist philosophy and Rugby’s plan.
Another nineteenth-century thinker who introduced ideas of socialism into the Upper Cumberland was Elmer Lincoln Wirt. Born in Minnesota 1863, Wirt was one of the first members of the Populist Party. In 1894 Wirt brought his family to Tennessee, then to Cookeville. He founded the Putnam County Herald in 1903 and lauded the benefits of socialism. ”Socialism is beyond doubt the only solution of the science of popular government.”
Another socialist leader in the Upper Cumberland, Myles Horton, was born in Savannah, Tennessee. About 1925 he went to work for the Presbyterian Church, conducting Bible schools in Cumberland County. In 1932 he established Highlander Folk School for mountain people and labor leaders in Grundy County. Horton emphasized that the school was not socialist, but he admitted freely that he was a socialist. During three decades of existence, Horton organized worker cooperatives in several locations. Horton trained labor leaders; he worked with the unions, and he achieved his greatest success in promoting equal rights for African Americans
Cumberland Homesteads in Cumberland County was part of the New Deal of President Roosevelt. Critics tagged the program socialistic. After careful selection, 228 families were selected for the Homesteads community. Using co-operative labor methods, the settlers built their barns and houses on about ten acres of land, which belonged to the federal government. The dreaded label of “socialism” was soon applied to the project. Other co-operative ventures – a general store, a cannery, a medical association, a community church, and women’s clubs – attached the word to the effort.Comment by Dickinson, Calvin: B
The climax of the socialist movement in the Upper Cumberland was the candidacy of Kate Bradford Stockton for governor of Tennessee in 1936. From Fentress County, she was the official candidate of the Socialist Party of Tennessee, chosen at the official meeting of the party in Nashville. Stockton lost the election by a large margin. Gordon Browning received 332,522 votes; Republican P.H. Thach received 78,292; and Kate Stockton received 3,786.
Although socialists held idealistic and worthwhile goals in the state, they never exerted a strong influence on the economy or on politics. Socialism had a very short life in the region and the state. Socialism was usually expressed and practiced by individuals rather than parties or movements. These individuals were usually idealists, utopians, or dreamers. They did not use the violent methods of socialists in other countries.